Here are some tips for staying healthy during Thanksgiving: 

With Thanksgiving rapidly approaching, now’s the time to start training ourselves in how we want to be in the upcoming holiday season.  When we say how we want to be, we are talking about being intentional with our holiday habits. Intent matters, and planning, even a little bit can help keep you from going off the rails. 

• Eat breakfast: Skipping breakfast can lead to overeating later. Unless you are already accustomed to an intermittent style of eating and it’s easy for you to know where you stand with your intake.
• Stay hydrated: Drinking water can help you maintain portion control and suppress your appetite. Being dehydrated can lead to overeating, with your body craving more food to satisfy the water deficit.
• Eat slowly: Eating slowly gives your body time to feel full, which can help you avoid overeating. This is a powerful holiday and life habit! Chewing our food thoroughly aiding in digestion.
• Practice portion control: Use a smaller plate and eat three medium meals instead of three large ones. This goes hand in hand with chewing and eating slowly. Savoring our food and allowing ourselves to feel a sense of nourishment does take practice but being intentional during the holidays can help immensely.
• Include fiber: Eating meals high in fiber before Thanksgiving can help you feel full longer.
• Get enough sleep: Sleep helps your immune system stay strong and regulate your mood. The list is long for how sleep helps us but getting a good night’s sleep elevates our energy for the day and in turn helps us be more aware when making food choices. This awareness is vital when our little voice goes off, saying we are full or that treat is quality enough for me to consume or that you are just simply in a good place with your meal.
• Stay active: Physical activity can help reduce holiday stress! I feel like almost everyone is feeling some sort of stress at the moment. It’s impossible for us to get away from stress, whether it be mental, emotional, environmental, or any other potential stressor to the system.  Take the holiday break to slow down and connect to the people in your life. Also take the time to slow down within yourself! Can you guess the number one way to affect the nervous system? Yes, you guessed it…breathing! Take light, low and slow breaths through your nose and feel the shift into a more relaxed state within yourself.
• Mix in healthy alternatives: You can use avocado instead of butter or fat-free yogurt instead of sour cream or mayo. The big challenge for me is the chips or anything crunchy. I will go to town on crunchy, salty chips, so I have to be very careful with not going down the crunch road. Know your dangerous roads and steer away from them.
• Avoid holiday shopping when hungry: Stick to your original meal list or grab a protein snack at the start of your shop to satisfy the hunger. Most people are low on protein intake anyway so take it as an opportunity.
• Be gracious with yourself: Don’t let how much you eat determine your mood and know that nobody is perfect! If and when we go a bit rogue, it’s important to be self-compassionate and coach ourselves like we would coach our best friend. Studies out of Stanford University state that being self-compassionate can be more beneficial than beating ourselves up with a result that leaves us remaining in the undesired behavior.  So be nice to yourself this holiday and be intentional with what you ultimately want.

Want more tips on how to stay healthy and lower stress during the holidays?